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Smart Drugs & Nutrients:

How to Improve Your Memory and Increase Your Intelligence Using the Latest Discoveries In Neuroscience

VOLUME 1 in the Smart Drugs Series

by Ward Dean, M.D. & John Morgenthaler
$12.95 - 224 pages, softcover (Out of Stock)

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Glossary

Acetylcholine (ACh): A neurotransmitter which plays an important role in memory. It is also used for control of sensory input signals and muscular control. ACh is a stimulatory neurotransmitter. When released by muscle nerves, it makes those muscles contract. It is made from the precursor nutrient choline and there is some evidence that increased dietary choline can increase production and use of acetylcholine. Also, many drugs affect the production and release of this neurotransmitter.

Age Pigment: (See lipofuscin).

Alzheimer's disease: Also called SDAT (senile dementia Alzheimer's type). This disease is characterized by a general loss of intellectual ability and impairment of memory, judgment, and abstract thinking as well as changes in personality. Other symptoms include loss of speech, disorientation, and apathy. Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia, rarely occurring before the age of 50. The disease takes from a few months to four or five years to progress to complete loss of intellectual function.

Amino Acid: an organic acid containing an amine (ammonia-like) chemical group. Amino acids are put together by your body in highly specific ways to manufacture proteins.

Antioxidant: a nutrient or chemical that reacts with and neutralizes free radicals or chemicals that release free radicals. Antioxidants are also called free radical scavengers. Vitamins A, C, E, some of the B vitamins, beta‑carotene, selenium, and some key enzymes in your body are all antioxidants. By intercepting the free radicals, antioxidants prevent them from damaging delicate molecular structures such as your DNA. See Free Radicals.

ATP: Adenosine triphosphate, the universal energy molecule, created in the mitochondria of your cells using energy derived from the food you eat. All the cellular activities in your body use the energy released by splitting ATP.

Catecholamines: the class of neurotransmitters that includes norepinephrine, and dopamine.

Central Nervous System (CNS): the brain, spinal cord, and their associated nerves.

Cerebrovascular Insufficiency: an inadequate supply of blood to the brain because of a narrowing of the blood vessels which lead to, or are in various areas of the brain.

Cholinergic: the parts of the nervous system that use acetylcholine as a neurotransmitter.

Dendrites: the fine network of branches that extend from the body of a nerve cell, receiving impulses and carrying them into the center of the cell.

DNA: deoxyribonucleic acid, the genetic blueprint that resides in the nucleus of every cell of every living organism ever studied. Many researchers believe that free radical damage to the DNA is directly involved in aging and cancer.

Dopamine: a neurotransmitter critical to fine motor coordi­na­tion, immune function, motivation, insulin regulation, physical energy, thinking, short‑term memory, emotions such as sexual desire, and autonomic nervous system balance.

Dopaminergic: the parts of the nervous system which use dopamine as a neurotransmitter.

Double-Blind: a type of scientific experiment in which neither the subjects nor the researchers know who is receiving an active substance and who is receiving a placebo. The data generated from the experiment is then usually evaluated by researchers who do not know which subjects received the active substance. This type of experiment helps to eliminate personal bias from research.

Double-Blind Crossover: a double-blind study where at one point in the experiment all of the subjects switch from an active substance to a placebo or vice versa.

Free Radical: a highly chemically reactive atom, molecule or molecular fragment with a free or unpaired electron. Free radicals are produced in many different ways such as: normal metabolic processes, ultraviolet radiation from the sun, nuclear radiation, and the breakdown in the body of spoiled fats. Free radicals have been implicated in aging, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other kinds of damage to the body. See Antioxidants.

Free-Radical Reaction: the cascade of chemical reactions that occurs when a free radical reacts with another molecule in order to gain an electron. The molecule that loses an electron to the free radical then becomes a free radical, repeating the process until the energy of the free radical is spent or the reaction is stopped by an antioxidant. In biological systems this cascade can damage important molecules like DNA.

GABA: gamma aminobutyric acid, an amino acid which acts as an inhibitory neurotransmitter.

Growth Hormone (GH): a hormone secreted by the pituitary gland. GH stimulates growth and repair of the body as well as the activities of the immune system. With age, GH release diminishes.

Hormone: a chemical messenger such as growth hormone, testosterone or insulin.

Hypoxia: a condition of lowered oxygen levels in the blood. Hypoxia promotes free-radical activity in the body.

Inhibitory neurotransmitter: a neurotransmitter which decreases the electro‑chemical activity of neurons. GABA (gamma aminobutyric acid) and serotonin are inhibitory neurotransmitters.

Learning: a change in neural function as a consequence of experience.

Lipofuscin: the brown waste material deposited in skin and nerve cells that is commonly called "age spots." Lipofuscin is made of free-radical-damaged proteins and fats.

Liver spots: deposits of lipofuscin in skin.

Monamine oxidase (MAO): an enzyme which, in the brain, breaks down certain neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine.

Nerve: a cell which carries information to and from the central nervous system.

Nerve Growth Factor (NGF): a naturally occurring hormone that stimulates the growth of neurites.

Neurites: the tiny projections growing from each nerve cell which carries information between the cells. A nerve cell may have over 100,000 neurites growing out of it, each connected to another nerve cell.

Neurochemical: a chemical that naturally occurs in the nervous system and plays a part in its functioning.

Neuron: a nerve cell.

Neurotransmitter: one of the many chemicals that carries impulses between nerve cells.

Nootropic: a word coined by Dr. Giurgea to describe a new class of drugs that act as cognitive enhancers with no side effects or toxicity, from the Greek words noos, meaning mind and tropein meaning toward. (See the section on Nootropics.)

Norepinephrine: an excitatory neurotransmitter involved in alertness, concentration, aggression and motivation, among other behaviors. Norepinephrine is made in the brain from the amino acid phenylalanine.

Oxidation: a chemical reaction in which an electron is taken from a molecule of the oxidized substance.

Parkinson's disease: a chronic disease of the central nervous system caused by lowered levels of the inhibitory neurotrans­mitter dopamine. Symptoms include muscular tremors and weakness.

Pituitary gland: a gland at the base of the brain. The pituitary secretes several different hormones involved in key metabolic processes.

Placebo: an inert compound usually given to a portion of the subjects in a scientific experiment in order to distinguish the psychological effects of the experiment from the physiological effects of the drug being tested.

Precursor: a chemical which can be converted by the body into another is a precursor of the latter chemical.

Receptors: sites on the outside of cells where particular messenger molecules such as hormones can attach. This attachment to the receptor site causes corresponding changes inside the cell.

Regeneration: the regrowth of cells, tissues, organs, or limbs.

Senility: the aging‑related loss of mental faculties.

Serotonin: an inhibitory neurotransmitter required for sleep.

Stimulatory Neurotransmitter: a neurotransmitter that increases electro‑chemical activity in the nerve cells. Norepinephrine is an stimulatory neurotransmitter.

Stroke: a rupture in a blood vessel in the brain, often with disastrous effects depending on where the rupture occurs.

Synergy: when compounds are combined and their effects are more than the sum of their individual effects, the compounds are said to have positive synergy. Many of the compounds we write about here have positive synergistic effects with each other.

Systemic: throughout the entire body.

Toxic: poisonous. Everything, including water and oxygen, is toxic in sufficiently high doses.